DARE THE WILD WIND (48 page)

After this afternoon's quarrel,
Cam might believe she had taken flight on foot from the plantation.  But could she really trust Fenella?  Could Fenella really forgive what she had suffered when Brenna failed to discover her missing from their room on Paradise Street?   Or care what became of Brenna once she persuaded her to leave Scotsman's Bend?

"If I go now, everything will be just the way it was for you, won'
t it?" Brenna said with a level look.     

Fenella sat back in her chair.  "Do you think I only want to be rid of you?  That I just want to have
Cam to myself again?"  She let out a weary breath.  "I won't hold onto Cam forever, even if you go.  I have no choice but to stay, but you have the chance to be free of him  before he turns on you."

"If you have gold, you can go as easily as I can."

"Where would I go?  To another man who'll cast me aside as quickly when he's done with me?" Fenella answered with biting honesty.  "If you let
Cam force you into marriage, he can find it as simple to be quit of you.  If you fail to give him children, or he decides he'd prefer some Frenchman's daughter, he only has to say you lied to him, that you already had a husband in England.

"You may think I have reason to deceive you.  But I owe it to Iain to warn you not to trust
Cam.  I know what Cam is.  I know what he did to Iain." 

The words were low and clear and etched with pain. 

Brenna felt a flash of sympathy for Fenella.  "
Cam told me what happened to Iain," she said, sharing her grief.  "He couldn't speak, and the British soldiers dragged him away.  You can't blame Cam for that.  He blames himself, but he wasn't there when they came for him."

"Oh, he blames himself enough to drink far into the night," Fenella answered with a twist in her voice.  "Enough to put on a show of regret.  And, once, enough to let the truth out
, to tell me Iain would never have survived the year in prison.  To tell me he had every right to live."

Brenna looked back at her, denial squeezing the breath from her chest.  "Both of them had every right to live," she began. 

Fenella cut her short.  "Not as
Cam saw it," she said, her expression bleak and past consolation. 

"
Cam was there when the soldiers came for him.  None of the other prisoners knew which of them was the chief of the MacCavans. 

"It was easy for
Cam to trade places with Iain.  Easy for Cam to let Iain go to the gallows in his place."

Chapter 27

Cam
had deliberately sent Iain to his death.  Faced with the hangman's rope, he had allowed his closest and oldest friend, his blood kin, to swing on an English gibbet to save his own skin.  He was no more than a Judas and a coward. 

As children they had all sworn a sacred vow to be forever loyal, the three of them against Malcolm and the world.  Iain had risked his life over and again for
Cam.  How could Cam turn his back on a wounded man, one who had been like a brother, above everything, one who had lost the power even to speak his name?

What a show of grief he had put on that night in the cabin of the
Red Witch
.  Brenna had comforted him, while he lied and lied and lied.  Deep in his cups, Cam might mourn Iain, but he didn't regret what he had done.  Instead he had tried to justify his betrayal, even to Fenella.  Had Cam forgotten Fenella loved Iain?

"You can't spare time to grieve for Iain," Fenella said.  "I've shed tea
rs enough for us both.  If you mean to leave, you have to go now."

Brenna burned to call
Cam a monster to his face, to bare this final lie between them.  Fenella's fingers closed painfully and urgently over hers. 

"It's my shame that I stay with him.  Don't let it be yours."

Brenna knew she had no choice.  "Send for your girl."

Fenella rang a small silver bell.  Then a deafening explosion drowned it.  They both jumped, nearly upsetting the table.  The pitcher rocked, and one of the crystal goblets tottered and shattered, spreading a sticky amber stain on the spotless cloth. 

Fenella froze.  "Dear God," she whispered.  "It's cannon fire.  At the point."

"Cannon fire?"

Fenella swallowed.  "
Cam's crew mans a gun emplacement at the mouth of the river.  A ship is trying to sail past."

Bartholomew Fletcher had told Brenna that was impossible.  Any ship larger than the
Red Witch
would run aground.  But a second barrage quickly followed.  The thunderous broadside dwarfed the first report.  The veranda shook on its stilts, and Odelia reappeared in the door of the house, a half plucked chicken in one hand.  Fenella shot up on wobbly feet, glancing wildly toward the beach.

"We're being attacked.  We can't stay here."

Another volley answered from the shore.  From the small cove where Fenella's house stood, the river and the ship were hidden by a densely
  grown neck of land.  But by the ear shattering force of the bombardment no great distance separated them from the fight.

"Where can we go?" Brenna asked, as alarmed by Fenella's sudden panic as she was by the sound of guns. 

"Away from here.  They're bound to find us here."  Fenella's words sounded singsong and childish.  Brenna took her by the arms. 

"Fenella, you know the island.  I don't.  Is there anywhere we'll be safe?"

Brenna's touch seemed to steady her a little.

"Into the jungle.  We have to go into the jungle."

Brenna whirled to Odelia.  "Can you take us somewhere no one will find us?"

Odelia's eyes cut toward the surf, and then to the path they had taken from the slave quarters.  "The jungle is the only way.  Go back like we came.  I will go.  Fetch provisions."

Before Brenna could object, Odelia vanished back into the house.  "Will she catch up to us?" she asked Fenella.      

Fenella nodded, some of the color returning to her face.  "I always rely on Odelia."

Brenna only hoped they could. 

Fenella started at a new round of fire, closer than before.  She listened intently.  "It isn't a British frigate.  Or a Spanish man
o' war.  It's a ship like Cam's."

The last doubled Brenna's alarm.  There was a chance she could make English seamen believe who she was.  Raiders from a freebooter like the
Red Witch
would be another matter.  If they fell into the hands of the invaders, they would be prizes of war.  Brenna preferred a quick death to the kind renegades would deal them. 

She caught Fenella's hand to pull her headlong up the path toward the jungle.  Hampered by her shorter stride, Fenella quickly lagged behind. 
Half hauling her along, Brenna mentally cursed the tight stays of their corsets and the flimsy slippers on their feet.  Chest bursting, she glanced back just long enough to see Odelia loping after them, a machete in her hand.  For them, or for the attackers?  A stitch in her side, all Brenna dared to think of was reaching the cover of the trees.

Then, at last, they stumbled into the green arms of the jungle.  Panting, they halted to catch their breath and wait for Odelia.  As the black woman dashed toward them, Brenna saw to her relief that she had knotted a loaf of bread and a wheel of cheese in her apron. 

"Are you sure we should take this path?" Brenna asked when Od
elia overtook them.  "We could meet the raiders coming from the plantation."

"The only other path cleared is along the beach," Fenella wheezed, "the way Odelia was going to take you." 

In the open, on the beach, they could easily be seen.  Odelia lifted the machete.  "With this, I can cut a trail to meet the other.  We can go to the
cimarrón
camp."

Brenna didn't relish the last.  They couldn't be certain the
cimarróns
hadn't betrayed Cam's hidden base.  But they were better off to stay out of sight in the jungle.

"We'll go with you.  But we have to get off this path quickly."

The tangle of growth around them was nearly impenetrable, but a trail freshly hacked by a machete would lead anyone who saw it after them.  They had to find a natural break in the dark wall of vegetation on either side of them, and use the machete only after they could slip through, leaving no clue behind them.

Then, just as they spotted a ragged chink in the twist of vines and trunks that soared over them, they heard the heavy crunch of boots yards ahead of them.  Before they could duck through the gap in the undergrowth, two of
Cam's men appeared around a bend in the path, cutlasses drawn.  The first of them let out a surprised oath, and lowered his sword.

"'Tis you, m'lady.  And Mistress Strath."  Caught off guard at discovering them together, he looked stumped for a second.  "The captain sent us for you.  The captain's searched the grounds for you, m'lady.  And he's given us orders to bring Mistress Strath back to the main house."

The other sailor slid a scum
toothed grin at Brenna and Fenella.  "I vow he'll want the both of them for company, now that they've found each other out."

"You can tell the captain we have no desire to join him," Brenna snapped.

The second crewman's answer was an unpleasant leer.  "No need for haste.  MacCavan's not like to spare any more men for a spell.  We could while away a bit of time, and none the wiser."

He took a stride closer to Brenna, and she could smell his foul breath.

"The captain will have you flogged if you detain us," she shot back, despising herself for invoking
Cam's protection.

He gave a harsh laugh.  "You'll tell no tales,
my lady
."

"MacCavan will draw and quarter us, you thickskulled ass."

"Who's to say we chanced t
o find them?  Who's to say any man will find them?" 

Icy feet crawled up Brenna's back.  She longed for her dirk, for any weapon.  Odelia had a machete, but would she use it?

"
Stow that talk," the bigger man snapped.  "I don't kill women."

"Or toss their skirts, as I've seen," the other said with a sneer.  "Mayhap you don't have a mind for the work."

Brenna edged backward.  Furtively, she reached behind her, willing Odelia to put the cane knife in her hand. 

"Mayhap you'd make better music without a tongue," the first  man said in a dangerous voice.       

Brenna took another step, gesturing more frantically for the machete.  And froze too late.

"Slut!"  Before she could dodge, the shorter  man had her by the hair, his other hand bruising at her throat.  "Full of tricks, my fine duchess?  Too grand for the likes of a sailor?"

Brenna's fingers pried desperately, uselessly, at his.  Choking, she fought for air, and the taller man swore.

"Belay your whoring, you rutting goat."

"Take the other, if you're a man, and put horns on the Scotsman yourself."

The strangling fingers tightened, and black spots swam  behind her eyes.  Brenna struggled to stay conscious, to stay on her feet and resist.

"She's MacCavan's woman."  Brenna felt her attacker torn back
ward.  Through a dizzy blur, she saw him pulled three staggering steps away. 

A shaft of sun glittered off the blade as it swung in a deadly arc.  With a wet crack, it sliced into bone and flesh, and a fountain of blood spurted as the cutlass lopped her tormentor's head cleanly off at the neck.  Warm drops splashed Brenna's face, and she swayed at the sight of the jerking, twitching trunk.      

"You'll call me a man in hell, Munker Cobb." 

Feet planted wide over the decapitated corpse, the hulking crewman wiped his curved sword clean on his breeches.  Twisting quickly away, Brenna doubled over to retch in the leaf
  strewn track. 

When she could straighten, Brenna found Fenella shivering uncontrollably, her back against a tree.  Odelia was gone. 

"I'm not hurt, Fenella.  But we have to go."

She jumped at the remaining crewman's voice behind her. 

"Right you are, m'lady.  Just be good enough to lift your skirts when you step around yon carrion."

He gestured past the body in the direction of the plantation.

They emerged from the darkening tunnel of trees to wild disorder.  The slaves had deserted the cane fields, and they ran from the cabins in the quarters with whatever they could carry, scattering in every direction.

"Can't blame the beggars," their escort  muttered.  "They don't want to be carried off and sold."

When they gained the first grassy slope of the grounds above the slave quarters, Brenna saw the confusion behind them only mimicked the madness on the river.  The invading ship had maneuver
ed between the
Red Witch
and the crew's fortified compound on the opposite bank of the estuary.  A battery of guns held most of Cam's men at bay, while it loosed broadside after broadside on the ship sitting at anchor.